Abstract
CONTINENTAL edges that are matched in pre-continental drift reconstructions have generally been defined by an isobath. When the isobath chosen is too shallow, isolated bathymetric highs within the ‘oceanic’ area are interpreted as continental fragments that may consequently be moved at will to fill any gaps in the reconstruction1. Orphan Knoll (which had a history of uplift, erosion and subsidence2) and Flemish Cap3 are two such fragments for which lateral movements across the northeast Newfoundland shelf have been invoked4. Detailed bathymetric, magnetic and gravity surveys5,6 have confirmed that the entire intermediate depth area of the northeast Newfoundland Shelf inshore of Orphan Knoll and Flemish Cap is continental in nature thereby invalidating reconstructions which assume otherwise. I show here that the offshore extension of the Hermitage–Dover fault in Newfoundland provided the line of weakness along which the Charlie transform fault developed.
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HAWORTH, R. The continental crust northeast of Newfoundland and its ancestral relationship to the Charlie Fracture Zone. Nature 266, 246–249 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1038/266246a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/266246a0
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